Is Europe ready for the challenge?, well doesn´t seem like it

The fundamentals doesn’t look good and we need to react.

What is going up in Europe?

Colleagues, looking at the economic performance of the old continent we are more and more lagging behind in performance and life quality. Everyday news send messages of inner economic shadows and show how we are losing ground to other economic powers like the US and China. Our actions are wrongly focus on political correctness and meanwhile we forget where the world is moving to, for example in sectors like innovation, technology, defense, and value generation.

The relevance of the EU in the world has come down since 2017 a and is expected to keep being less relevant economy in the coming years. IMF estimates that the EU will represent only 13% of the world economy in 2029 (see IMF graph below). This is for me quite shocking and represents the wrong direction of our policies and our approach to the world context.

This means we are falling behind and will become the less relevant economy of the bigger blocks for the rest of the decade. Europe is at risk of becoming a museum and a place to have holidays (viva la sangria!)

I recently read that forecasts from the IMF this month sharply upgraded economic prospects for the US  this year, predicting 2.7 per cent growth, far above the Eurozone’s predicted 1 per cent expansion (see graph below).

To be honest this is a failure that will chase us for the generations to come.

But where is the problem? and what can we do about it?

For me colleagues, the problem is partially cultural. We Europeans need to be driven by merit not by political correctness.

The global economy is changing at rapid speed and we can simply not afford not to have a society that is driven by the best in the decision making jobs and leading the private and public institutions. Meritocracy needs to be the driver. If we don’t evolve in our priorities, we will lose the race with the world leaders.

Merit baby, merit, This is the formula for the old continent that is lagging behind…